Michaelangelo's nightmarish painting Last Judgement includes the image of a poor soul being dragged down to Hell by the devil's agents. That image often comes to mind when I hear proponents of social media trying to persuade pharma marketers to just "dip their toe" in the social media waters. The other image I see is a shark lurking just below the water's surface!

The April 2009 issue of Pharma Marketing News is focused on social media, patient empowerment (which is powered by social media), and the constraints of regulation.

I present some background on social media usage and discuss how the articles in this issue are related.

Pharmaceutical companies and their agencies are "mulling" over amongst
themselves how the drug industry should engage consumers and physicians
via social media without violating FDA regulations. They are struggling
because the FDA has never issued clear guidelines for how it may
regulate the industry use of social media in the future. Many have
called upon the FDA to issue such guidelines.

Shouldn't we make
sure that when it comes time for the FDA to actually create a guidance
document on social media that it does it with input from ALL
stakeholders?

This article will present a review of this issue
based upon input received from experts and respondents to the "Should
FDA Convene a Public Hearing on Use of Social Media by Pharma?" survey
hosted by Pharma Marketing News
starting on April 2, 2009. Also included in a review of an ePharma
Pioneer Club roundtable discussion on what it's going to take to enable
pharmaceutical marketers to engage in social networks without fear of
adverse event reporting and other regulatory, corporate, and cultural
roadblocks.

Selecting the appropriate pharmaceutical product is one of the choices
that empowered patients can make. But according to Reinhard Angelmar,
the Salmon and Rameau Fellow in Healthcare Management and Professor of
Marketing at INSEAD, empowered patients are involved before a drug even
makes it to the market.

This article will review a presentation
made by Angelmar at the recent eyeforpharma SFE Europe 2009 conference
held in Barcelona, Spain. Angelmar makes a case for the drug industry
to adopt a patient-centric model in which pharma companies can develop
unique expertise in decoding the behavior, needs, motivations of
patients and then use this knowledge as the basis for helping
healthcare professionals and payers to put into place programs that
achieve better patient outcomes.

Digital Pharma Europe was ExL Pharma's first entry into the 'Old World'
hosting an event already well established in the States. It seems they
have found the time right to see whether the Europeans are like-minded
in the exciting area of new/social/digital media in pharma.

In
this article Erik van der Zijden -- entrepeneur, marketing
professional, new media evangelist and self-styled "autodidactic
techno-nerd" -- presents highlights of this conference and his personal
point of view..

Topic headings include:

More Focus on Social Media at Conferences

Old School Digital?

Pharma Going Social, Slowly

Best Practices

Online Physician Communities Will Radically Change Pharma Marketing

When It Comes to Social Media, Pharma Marketers Inside Pharma are Not Keeping Up with Their Agency Colleagues (Survey Results)

One only has to recall the 7-Up "Uncola" campaigns to understand the
limitations of defining something by the absence of certain qualities.
But the Social Pharmer Unconference was more refreshing than a fizzy
soda exactly because it lacked what causes so many industry conferences
to fall flat: marginally relevant speakers, boring PowerPoint
presentations and silent participants. In this article, Amber Benson,
Group Strategy Director for IMC2's Health & Wellness practice,
summarizes key presentations made at the April 21, 2009, Social Pharmer
"unconference."